Masteries

Offense:
9

Defense:
0

Utility:
21

Introduction

ALL THE PARTS WRITTEN IN YELLOW ARE RELATED TO DOMINION (THE NEW MAP AND GAMESTYLE WHICH IS GONNA BE RELEASED)

As the title of my guide says i'll introduce yourselves the correct build to defeat a fed DPS even with a caster. I chose Vladimir because i really like him as caster and because i love his

Before starting to describe the build i must say that THIS IS NOT A GUIDE FOR BEGINNERS VLADIMIR(i suggest to ppl who really want to play a Caster in Dominion to keep reading the whole guide which is full of informations). The build showed was just studied for being mainly used on Dominion, because in there you will never have to face the whole opponent team but only 1,2 or at most 3 enemy champions, so Vladimir will be really a good champion to choose imo.. If you are interested in it you can keep reading if you aren't just be mature and just turn off a blind eye on it ^^ (i mean not always we should flame on everything,ty ^^')

Ok here is an easy guide to play vladimir in a kinda smooth way.
We must consider Vladimir's main benefits:
1) Vladimir has short CDs which allow him to get a strong chain of spells but we'll see this better later on in the next chapters.
2) Vladimir has a cool Spell Vamp. with his skills already.
3) His ulti is an amazing skill which helps the team and often kills all the champions who were used to run away, thanks to their flash, with really low HP.
4) We mustn't forget Vladimir's Sanguine Pool that is one of the best skills for escaping and catching the sprinter champions like withorwith!

Pros/Cons

After the little introduction you have just read about Vladimir, let's start to split his PROs from his CONs.

Evereyone of you will be asking themselves: why should i play a champion like Vladimir in Dominion?!?

Well, just read what i think about Vlad^^

PROs
-Vladimir heals himself using his skills
-Vladimir's CDs are pretty much short if compared to the other Casters
-With Vladimir you can count on a wide amount of powerful AOE skills
-His ulti + is a really good combo when you are 1v2 or 1v3.
-With Vlad can easily escape from battles, avoid tower's hits and even avoiding a lot of Ultis..
(such as ,,,, and so on.. oh Shaco can do this too while casting his ulti XD)

For me this is enough! ^^

CONs
-Sadly (and as guessable) our hero is squishy ^^'
-His most powerful skills and cost respectively 15% and 20% of his current hp. (which is a lot if you are full hp but if you aren't... >:3)
-Usually you will be one of the main focus (for example with + will kill you easily... But since not everywhere worths the Commutative rule, this doesn't mean that Malzahar is a better Caster than Vladimir... We can say it just depends on the situation. I wanted to specify this because i didn't want you to get me wrong ^^')
-Even if played a lil more Tanky, we mustn't forget that we have only 6 spaces in our inventory to maximize our build. I'll explain it better later on in the guide while i'll talk about CDR in the masteries chapter.
-Vladimir requires a bit of practice with him, though..
And with this i don't mean that he is hard to play.. I only mean that you should play him in order to understand what is better to do with him and in which situations.. (i know this worths for every champions but you could need a bit of time to get used at his Spell Vamp.)

Runes

This is a really important point of discussion especially if we are talking about a champion like Vladimir.
Well the game, runes and masteries were calculated in order to give the players the necessary space to differ from each other but not that much to unbalance the same game.
For a gamer this is really important to know, but that's not what we want to know right now...
Many champs in LoL like Akali, Mordekaiser and even Vladimir with a good rune set have like an edge more.
In particoular Vladimir will be more effective if he has more magic penetration; not only under the damage dealt aspect but even (and mainly) because the more damages he deals the more HP he will get back thanks to the Spell Vamp.

Here's my Rune-set:x9 for the reason i explained a few mins ago.

x9 i chose these runes instead of because with when you hit level 9(half of the cap level and you always hit it even if the match will last for 20 mins and we are talking about Summoner's rift...) you earn more AP thanAnd in dominion everyone starts at level 3 already..
So it's pretty much useless to buy runes which gives you a big boost when you are level 1...x9 for the same reason i just explained

x3 A good amount of AP at the beginning of the match will grant you a smaller amount of effort in mid game.I suggest for Dominion to use x3, i will explain this better in the masteries section when i talk about movement speed..

Masteries

I placed the masteries in this way to reduce the CDs on my both summoner's spells

ATTENTION! Just remember. Don't forget to fix your masteries tree before using Vladimir because you might have left the mana regen points on in the support side.

I chose 9-0-21 cuz i don't like to die ingame... XD

Nah, the real reason is that i really prefear to save myself even while sprinters are following me and the faster you are the higher performance you can get in the teamfights or even for saving an ally who is in a critical situation.

9 OFFENSE:
The best set you can gain for Vladimir from this side of the masteries tree is: AP,CDR and M.PEN
Sadly we had to waste a point into crit. chance to get what we wanted but i think it was worthed it.
We dont need anything more from this side, let's continue with the other branches..

0 DEFENSE:
Since our aim isn't making a Tanky Vladimir we don't need to place any point in here.
Tanky Vladimir would be really nice! (only if it was possible doing it without loosing so many AP)

21 SUPPORT:
This will be our favourite side

In this part of the masteries tree we can get many advantages such as:

CDR, CDR of the summoner's spells, increased movement speed, reduced time spent dead.
Now i am gonna explain why everything of these thing are useful for a Caster like Vladimir.

CDR
CD is not the right way to make a good build for casters imo.
Just think that you are using a lot of space of our inventory..(think at this: you should have at least 2 items to get CDR at his cap (40%), which is 1/3 of our inventory)
Of course this argument will be examined better while talking about items.
In this case, though, we get CDR straight from our masteries without occupying any inventory space, which is just perfect.

CDR of the summoner's spells
Many times summoner's spells are really useful to escape from enemies, to catch an enemy or even to save a turret which is gonna fall down because a lot of minions are sieging it (or cuz there's an annoying backdoorer).For example the CDR on is really useful for running through the map and then starting to conquer an enemy "turret".

Movement speed
This is the "always useful" part of this side of the tree.
In fact when we talk about it in LoL we are talking about everything.
With it you catch, grab, stun, silence, suppress, fear...
And till now we aren't even talking about Movement speed in Dominon.Since the map is really small in there, the more movement speed you will have the more you will be helpfull for your team: backdooring, assisting the team during the fights to capture "turrets" and so on...
Since this will be like a must on Dominion i'd suggest to replace our QEs.
Using x3 instead of x3

Reduced time spent dead
I must say that the best way to help your team is never dying... or at least dying fewer times possible.But sometimes this isn't really possible BECAUSE:
When you were mid you really did good, but at the time of the first teamfights(midgame)
-One of your teammates fed like hell..
-A few of your teammates were premade and they aren't good, so they all fed like hell...
-You got 1 or more leavers/AFKers in your team, but before leaving they fed like hell!
-Ragequitters, who feed like hell before quitting! (i never understood what their problem is,btw...)
AND SO ON!
AND THE LoL MANAGEMENT STILL IMPLEMENTED NOTHING TO FIX THIS, CUZ THEY PREFEAR TO DESIGN 85839358389365838735457347364736 TEEMO SKINS!

Oh, well. These are the reasons why you need this free boost..
I know that 10% of it couldn't seem that much.. (which is true cuz 10% on 30 secs you are dead is just -3 secs, so 27 secs...)
But we must always remember that every second less spent dead is a second more spent to help our team. (After rereading this sentence it sounded like a sentence of a politician during their speech! ROFL)

Items

Finally we've come to the most important section of this guide.
Now i will explain you why i chose these items for my build:

First of all i suggest to take for harrassing more and x3 for recovering and to stay in lane as much as possible.
Then nowadays (SINCE VLADIMIR HAS BEEN NERFED SO MANY TIMES) takingisn't just helpfull but it's a must!

Since in Dominion everyone will start with 1375g you can just skip buying as first item and buy directly . It'll be even pointless to start with Prospector's Ring (30AP, 7 Mana Regen , +200 hp passive) because 200 hp on Vlad are only +5 ap atm and 40 ap + 15% Spell Vamp. of the are way much better,imo..(it's the same comparison of and just in the HP version XD)

After that you will be able to stay in lane smoothly because withandis just impossible not being full hp the most of the time, so you'll have all the time for farming.
After all this farming i can usually buy
As next step i showed i buy the recipe of the shoesbecause i prefear to make the most of our AP and spell vamp. potential.

And till now everyone of you could say: "yea that's the usual Vladimir's build...".
True, but my build starts right now ^^'

The CD or not CD dilemma

The really bad/good thing about all the Casters which's even the thing that makes us hate/love them so much is that they deal massive high damages but having long CDs in all their skills which make they be balanced and non-OP champs.
I admit that the first thing you may think (as smart to do) is to reduce the CDs of your skills in order to deal high damages the many times you can...
It's not that wrong but it's not the real solution of the problem imo...
I needed to say this to introduce yourselves to see the things under my point of view.is maybe the best ingame item with the activable effect.
In fact if well used the skill of this item can be really precious and that's what i'll teach you later on..

we want more magic penetration, MORE!!!

this is just a "precaution item" ^^

Everything will be explained better in the Skill Sequence paragraph.

When you have a few gold for spare don't forget to buywhich will make you stronger.

Yes, you could say that my build is so expensive and so on.. But as far as i could see in Dominion everyone starts at level 3 (as i already said in the runes chapter) and the gold increases of 3 by 3, (not 1 by 1 like in Summoner's rift) and since in there everything is faster you will even get faster gold.. Ah and, if you capture a "turret" alone you gain 100g and if you help your allies at capturing one you gain gold based on how much you helped (guess this like if you get an assist from capturing the enemies turrets).
After having known this, do you still think my build is hard to make? XD

Skill Sequence

HERE IS THE HEART OF THE MATTER!

For all of you who didn't understand/guessed it yet i am gonna explain you all how does it work.

The "stroke of genius" of the build is this: having and is like having 2 skills more (cuz of their UNIQUE skills)!! So we can cast all our skills twice! (except for the ulti >.<)

ALWAYS REMEMBER TO USE FIRST THE ULTI AND THEN THE SKILL OF THE DEATHFIRE GRASP BECAUSE THE MANY HP YOUR OPPONENT HAS THE MANY DAMAGES YOU WILL DEAL TO HIM! IN ADDITION YOUR ULTI WILL ALLOW THE DEATHFIRE'S SKILL TO DEAL 14% DAMAGES MORE!

This is the chain of the skills you should remember:

,,,,AND ONLY IF NEEDED (IF YOU ARE LOW/REALLY LOW HP).

Last hit (or hit in the middle of the chain) your opponent with a poke(normal attack) enhanced by Lich Bane's effectif you think he is not gonna die.

BEST FRIEND RULES WHEN YOU PLAY AS Vladimir:
1)When you are in teamfight use your ulti when you think the teamfight is starting and try to hit the more enemies possible, so your allies damages [both skills and pokes(normal attacks) will deal 14% damages more too!]
2)As Vladimir it's your duty to farm!

AND NOW THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE...

WHEN YOU WILL FACE A FED DPS..
DON'T, AND WHEN I SAY DON'T I REALLY MEAN DON'T!!!
DON'T HAVE ANY MERCY (like Veigar does) FOR HIM, BECAUSE WHEN YOU WILL FACE A FED TRYNDA OR A FED GP (who hits you around for 800 damages every crit. he does) IT WILL BE JUST: OR YOU OR HIM!

I really hope i have been clear with regard to this aspect.

Well i think the chain-skill is clear enough so i would let you think at this build used on other champions.. For example Le Blanc ^^
I let you think on how destructive her new combo could be... (and on how it could be used on dominion XD)
With this combo you can take down everyone in a 1v1, imo..

Since i think here the most of the players, especially the old school ones, will stop to read my guide i am gonna say to them:
If you liked this guide vote for it with a good thumb up! ^^

Summoner Spells

I'll explain this chapter through the lion-gazelle story but modified in a LoL way.

Every day, in the Summoner's rift, a Cho'Gath wakes up and knows it will have to run faster than a Wukong for finding food which it will need to survive.
Every day, in the Summoner's rift, a Wukong wakes up and knows it will have to run faster than a Cho'Gath for finding food which it will need to survive.
In League of Legends doesn't matter if you are a Cho'Gath or a Wukong, but just starting to run.

(The meaning of this little story is: you must run (work IRL) to get what you want and survive ^^)

But ok i'll describe spell after spell like other ppl did... (all the big icons of the spells mean that the spell can be considered the smaller ones.. Well, read their description and you will understand it XD)

= LOL.......................

= HAHA , nice one!

= I never used this spell... I know it can sound weird but i am not lying, and i don't think i will never use it on Vlad ^^'

= I don't really use this spell so much, but it is a really undervalued spell, imo.. Sadly even from me >.<;

= This doesn't even deserve my attention while we are talking about Vlad....

= I thought this spell was like wasting one of my 2 spell spaces so i did my jungle rune set....... Vladimir isn't even a jungler so this is just an useless spell, imo...

= HA-HA-HA-HA-HA.... This spell is just a joke..

= This spell is really usefull in some occasions (for example while you are solo laning top cuz you have a jungler in your team), but i wouldn't really take it with Vlad...

= A lot of ppl keep saying that this spell is just a noob spell...
Sometimes i use it when i am tanking and i think it's pretty much usefull to invert the situation, sadly Vladimir dooesn't need it.. (We have already a decent Spell Vamp.)

NOW LET'S START WITH THE MOST USED ONES!!!

= This spell is just amazing! Like this spell was done to invert the situation! It decreases attack damage, it decreases skills and active damages and it even slows the target!!! Well, i never used it on Vlad, but maybe it could become his secret weapon!If anyone has tried it out on Vlad please leave me a post(quick reply) so i will credit you in my guide, ty!

= Ok.. This spell's really good with Vlad and it's perfect if we want to FB (you just need to bring your opponent close to half hp then , after this try to hit with )
In my opinion this spell has a problem though..

As Vladimir, if the enemy team is good, we will be one of their main focus and many times they won't even look your tank.. (They will come straight to us, so it's really usefull to have a Flash spell in one of your 2 slots of the summoner's spells)
So we won't be able to start a fight seriously as we wanted to do, and then we can't use ignite or just use it random on their DPS.
I prefer to be fast when it's needed to run and behind my tank when it's needed...
This is the introduction and this is even why i chose and as my main summoner's spells!

Of course, for Dominion, i think that ignite and exhaust would be both really good choices! Since in there everything is way much faster than a 5v5 Summoner's Rift i think that it's better to keep running around the map harrassing and annoying the opponent team instead of recalling every 2-3 mins of game cuz you are low hp and you can't stand the fights...

The last chapter Q.Q

This is always the saddest part of the guides.

I must thank you for reading my guide and for your patience
I hope that the few minutes you spent reading it really paid your efforts back.

I have to add that i am so sorry for my poor english but..
I AM ITALIAN, WTH!
(I promise i'll keep trying to enhance my english more and more ^^)

P.S. even if a dislike i'd like (lol at the wordgame) if you would rate this guide.

Tyvm for the time and in advance for your possible rate.
Please reply, reply and reply again! I'll be happy to answer you!^^

Here's my signature just done with paint and uploaded on imageshack in about 15 mins XD

League of Legends is a team based, real time strategy game set in a mythical world of swords & magic where epic battles decide the fate of mystical nations. Game players take on the role of a Summoner who conjures and controls champions to fight for them at the Institute of War. During game play champions gain experience and items to enhance their skills and abilities. How players develop and play their champions can be the difference between a crushing defeat or a glorious victory!